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Family Circus, 12/19/13

I’m really enjoying Big Daddy Keane’s facial expression in this panel. That’s the look of a man who could not possibly give fewer shits about elves. He was willing to play along and list all the reindeer — that was a tradition, after all — but if this kid thinks the two of them are going to sit around and try to remember the names of, like, Legolas’s brothers or whatever, he’s got another thing coming. This explains his awkward hand placement as well: originally he was planning on picking Jeffy up and carrying him around, but if the kid’s on another one of his damn elf kicks, Daddy will be gingerly putting him down and slowly backing away.

Crankshaft, 12/19/13

Traumatized by the looming prospect of genuine emotional intimacy with another human being, Crankshaft sits alone, getting blotto. Did you know when a character in a comic strip gets super drunk not from drinking alcohol but rather from eating rum-soaked cookies, it’s hilarious, not sad? Crankshaft knows this!

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Judge Parker, 12/15/13

Oh hey remember the overly nice concierge who aggressively helped Judge Parker Senior with his terrible screenplay? (Side note: the Parkers have been on this hell cruise since July, Jesus.) Anyway, she’s now been replaced by a “fantastic” computer program, so we’ll need no more of her creative input! She’ll be perfectly happy with whatever loose hundos Alan had floating around in his wallet, plus a “small writer’s credit,” and hahahahaha if he thinks that there’s any such thing as a “small writer’s credit” or that he gets to decide who gets one. Hope you enjoy endless lawsuits and/or WGA mediation sessions, Alan!

Family Circus, 12/15/13

Re: “rapping his presence”: Obviously it’s ludicrous that a seven-year-old in 2013 would think “rapping” means “criticizing” and not “hip-hop vocals.” But still, I think we can all be thankful that the Family Circus has chosen not to depict some form of terrifying holiday-themed Christian praise rap.

Panel from Slylock Fox, 12/15/13

oh no Shady Shrew has mastered inception, we’re all done for

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Slylock Fox, 12/9/13

I think “Bertha Bear broke out of prison” should go down among the great opening lines in the history of fiction, along with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and “A screaming comes across the sky”. What was she in for, how long did she have left in her sentence, and how did she escape? Unfortunately, none of these questions are answered in today’s strip, although we do at least get an appropriately cluttered vision of an abandoned house in the Slylockverse. The two things I enjoy most about today’s mystery are (a) that the solution hinges not on some confirmable scientific fact about real bears in our universe, but rather anthropomorphic cartoon bears’ well-known predilection for carrying around large, well-labeled jars of honey, and (b) that Bertha Bear is right there, at the lower left, her head sticking out of the floorboards, looking pissed. “Yes, what, honey, are you kidding me? Just arrest me and take me back to the big house and get this over with already, Jesus Christ.”

Mary Worth, 12/9/13

The little dance Mary is doing here as she balances her lust and her status-seeking strikes me as extremely revealing about her character. On the one hand, she obviously finds Ken to be a very attractive slab of Broadwayman, and can’t resist bragging to Shelly that she’s about to be squired about New York on his sexy, sexy arm. On the other, the fact that the voice that made him famous is now no more is obviously a source of great embarrassment to her, because what’s the point of bragging about Ken Kensington’s attentions if he can’t even sing? “Less song in his voice” seems like an extremely minimizing way to say “botched surgery destroyed his career.” I look forward to the moment later in this plot when Shelly urges Ken to sing a few notes over dinner! The resulting social awkwardness should be excruciating for everyone involved.

Family Circus, 12/9/13

You know, I tend to scoff at people who get worked up about how there’s too much time today spent boosting kids’ self-esteem, but if a child as gross and unlikable as Jeffy thinks that a hug and a kiss from him represents of gift of any sort, maybe we have gone too far.